ASIA. 



heads the village, zemindary, and ryot systems. 

 Under the first, which seems to have belonged 

 to the earliest period of Hindu civilisation, the 

 country was divided into villages or districts, the 

 inhabitants of which formed an association, in 



which all trades and official duties were dis- 

 charged by members, who received as a reward 

 part of the produce of the soil. The potail, or 

 general manager, collected the revenue, and paid 

 it. The system chiefly prevails in the North- 



west Provinces. The second system seems to have 

 sprung from the Mohammedan conquest. The 

 collection of the revenue in many places was 

 intrusted by the conquerors to a class of tax- 

 collectors known as zemindars. They gradually 

 acquired a hereditary right to act in this capacity, 

 and being intrusted also with the administra- 

 tion of justice, they were supposed, by the English 

 rulers of India, to be landed proprietors, and were 

 accordingly recognised as such. The third or 



ryotwary system is that under which rents are 

 paid by the ryots, or peasants, under leases, direct 

 to the government. The zemindary system was 

 that adopted in Bengal by Lord Cornwallis in 

 1793. The ryotwary system was favoured in 

 Madras by Sir Thomas Munro, when governor of 

 the presidency. It was afterwards extended to 

 Bombay. The fact seems so far to explain the 

 poverty of the peasant in Bengal. All over India, 

 the formation of railways and other public works 



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